Photo shoot gone bad . . . VERY, very bad

Summer is here and my kiddos are out of school starting today.  That means sleeping in past 6:00 am (yay!), lazy days, lots of swimming, and whatever other fun activities we can drum up.  That also means juggling my work schedule and trying to complete business calls and emails from home while the girls play quietly (hopefully!) in the other room.  Working from home for a couple hours a day with the girls occupied doing something else usually works out fine.  However, my girls are at the age where they're bickering and fighting over little things.  A lot.  Although most of my layouts are all sunshine and rainbows, I don't pretend that my sweet little angels are perfect all the time.   Here's a layout I created for Creating Keepsakes a while back that captures one of those "non-perfect" moments in photos.  Disclaimer: No children were harmed during the taking of the these photos or the making of this scrapbook layout. :)

As seen in the January/February 2012 issue of Creating Keepsakes Magazine.  Copyright Creative Crafts Group.  Posted with prior permission from the publisher. 

I created this layout for the Supply Savvy article, which featured creative uses for sequins on scrapbook pages.  I used loose sequins and sequin trim to make the large flower centers.  Here's a close-up of the sequin technique and the journaling.

This layout is one of my personal favorites primarily because of the subject matter and the photos.  My girls crack up every time they look at it.  I think it's great to document these "less than perfect" moments on a scrapbook page.  In fact, I decided to make another version of this layout so that both of my girls could have one for their scrapbooks.  I made this one-page version for Prima's CHA booth earlier in the year.

Wish us luck that they we don't have too many of these squabbles this summer!

Colorful Creations Guest DT work + pics of New York

I had the pleasure of being a guest designer for Colorful Creations a few weeks ago.   I was given a beautiful sketch to use.  Here is the layout I created based on the sketch:

On a non-scrapbooking note, I just got back from a very fun filled trip to New York.  My mom, my girls and I went to visit my brother who just moved into his new place in Greenwich Village.  We hit a lot of the New York City tourist spots like Central Park, 5th Avenue, the Natural History Museum, Time Square, China Town, Little Italy, etc., and I took a lot of pictures. 

The first day we decided to take a double decker bus tour around Downtown Manhattan. It was a great way to take in the sights of the city.

All was well and good until it started raining.  Fortunately, our tour guide handed out these stylish little rain ponchos.  We all got quite a laugh out of it.  Here's Danielle and my mom:

They look like little ghosts, don't they?

This is me with my brother.  No, I'm not super short . . . he's just super tall.

We took a stroll through Central Park:

 
Some of the best views we saw of the city were from my brother's deck.

 

The city lights:

I took this picture with my cell phone and accidentally got a lot of camera shake. Cool effect, huh?

It was a great trip!!

Stampin Up! 2012 Catalog

Stampin Up! just released their new 2012-2013 catalog, and they sent me some of their fabulous new goodies to try out!!  I used to think that Stampin Up! was primarily a stamp company, but they offer SO much more for both cardmakers AND scrapbookers.  Check out the new catalog to see all the great stamps, ink, paper, ribbon, embellishments, die-cutting tools and dies, punches, fabric and more! 

Here's a page I made using some of the new Stampin' Up products. 

I love to make paper pinwheels.  I used to just make the accordion folds by eye-balling them but my pinwheels often came out looking a little wonky.  I made these pinwheels with the help of Stampin Up!'s Simply Scored Scoring Tool.  It was so much easier to get perfect folds and flawless pinwheels.  

Here are a couple cards I made.  Stampin Up! has some beautiful new fabrics, which I used to make the ruffles on this first card. 

Everything you see on these cards is Stampin Up!  Well, with the exception of the of the "Happy Birthday" strip which I typed using my vintage typewriter (my fun little new toy that I got for Mother's Day) 

 

 
If you haven't already seen it, be sure and check out the new Stampin Up! catalog:

Just click on the link or photo above to take a look-see at all of the great new products!!

Big Pictures Classes winner and a goodbye

Thank you to everyone who left comments on the Big Picture Classes giveaway post.  It was great to read the responses.  I really wish Blogger would allow me to email people directly in response to their posts (usually I get the "no-reply" return email address when I try to do so).  The Random Number Generator chose:
 


Commenter number 4 is . . . Faygie Fellig!  CONGRATS Faygie!  I'll contact you shortly to let you know the next step.

On another note, it's time to say a goodbye and a thank you.  You can read the lovely announcement here on the Prima blog.  My two years on the team have been an absolute pleasure from day one!  Anyone who knows me or has followed my blog knows how much I love Prima products, so being on their DT was a dream come true.  One of the added bonuses is that I made some wonderful friends along the way.  Working with Sharon Laakkonen (DT coordinator "extraordinaire") and the other talented and supportive ladies on the team has been a fantastic experience.  I'm truly grateful for everything.  Thank you, Prima! 

Best of luck to all the Prima girls who re-applied for another year . . . you all deserve it!  I can't wait to see who's on the new team! 

Prima - "Simple to Stupendous" Feature

Prima started a great new monthly feature called "Simple to Stupendous" where one of the DT members shows a dual approach to creating a layout: one version that's somewhat simple and the other with more product and techniques.  I had the honor of the doing the DT feature this month.  You can see the post here on the Prima blog.  Here are the Cliff Notes . . .

Personally, I don’t have a single set-in-stone scrapbooking style. To keep things interesting for myself, I like to play around with different styles. Some of my pages are very simple with minimal embellishments, and others are filled with techniques and lots of products.  For my post on the Prima blog, I created one-page variations of the two-page layout I did for my class a couple months ago. 
 
Here is the first version.

Pretty simple, huh? I created a quick and easy base for the photo by punching squares from the Songbird Collection papers.  I kept the rest of the page pretty simple by using a minimal amount of flowers (just enough to “pretty up” the page a bit).  Then I added my title and handwrote my journaling on a doily. This is a page that could easily be completed in half an hour and with minimal supplies.

Here is the second version.

As you can see, I added more embellishments and details. For example, I beefed up my cluster of flowers and embellishments. I added some details, like machine stitching around the page and I added tiny drops of Liquid Pearls around the center section.

Instead of a simple punched square design, I added a more eye-catching patchwork design adorned with pearls.

I first learned how to do this cool paper quilting technique here: Davinie’s quilting tutorial

To add a bit of sparkle and pizzazz to my embellishment clusters, I coated some of the flowers and the butterfly with translucent white glitter.

In case you missed it, here's my 2-page version.

Oh, before I forget, the winners of Maggie's Photography Workshops are posted on her blog here!

Have a fabulous weekend!